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Colin, would your love of Thai Airways wane if you could get the same flight with, say, Eva for less money ? Or will you only ever fly Thai ?

Well TG would be my preferred carrier Wolfy unless there was another direct flight hundreds of pounds less and I have opted TG where EVA for example was £90.00 less but maybe £150.00 ish I would go EVA.

With only a few direct flights from the UK with BA/Qantas usually ridiculously priced it really is only down to two airlines. Mind you a mate of mine has recently gone with Vietnam Air for £420.00 which is obviously very good and based on his report I would consider them but no way would I try your recent three airline route.

colin 244

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Originally Posted by manfarang

I looked on West East website and they where more expensive than others. Do you get a better price when you phone direct?

Quite often yes you do especially TG (they have a lot of Thai staff as well as a special relationship with TG) and being registered on their system as a repeat customer helps too.

West Easts online quotes are rubbish. Priorn to booking with them last week I tried their website and the cheapest economy flight was shown at 4 grand well you just wouldn't would you. Wolfy I have never tried tried another travel agent as within reason price is not a concideration Direct and airmiles is. Hence Jan and I are going Business as a result.

Last year of the 8 International flights I had 2 Business and 1 first class upgrades. So having paid just a little more for tickets I had more than my monies worth. You really cannot beat Thai for service .

I normally used to prefer TG because they had a more generous air mile reward
policy and with our ROP cards would get 30kg luggge allowance each. From memory to get a return ticket on EVA we needed 100k air miles and with TG it was 65k them went to 75k. Over the years we had several "free" tickets although once taxes went up they went from a true cost of around £70 to over £300, stil good though. Also from memory EVA only gave us 20kg luggage allowance a ticket and really checked closely. But from a service point of view the few times we used EVA (BR 67 & 68 ??) we were very happy.

I also prefer to fly with the same airline, in my case Singapore air, wherever possible. I get 125% mileage allowance on all flights (more if I fly business class) even with a silver card and if I can maintain gold status I get the business lounges and fast check in on all Star Alliance carriers. I also have used my air miles for 'free' flights or to upgrade to business class as a treat.

I don't like travel much anymore, well the getting there bit anyway, passport controls, security checks, all are a real hassle today. To arrive at the airport and see a five mile queue for check-in and know you can just go straight up to the gold card check-in and then hide in the business lounge with a few glasses of wine and some nibbles makes any difference in price well worth it, for me anyway. The familiarity is comforting. You get used to where the best seats are, the staff seem to treat you differently (imagination probably but you are 'marked' as gold card), you don't have to worry about luggage allowances (within reason), and for Singapore air their first language is English which is nice. And it's not a bad airline!

All of which were excellent and on time. The only complaint being the lack of Personal in flight entertainment on the Old Jumbo from BKK to Frankfurt, and the evening meal was really crap apparently. I missed that though and slept for much of the flight. I did get Breakfast, the omellette thingy was alright but with asparagus no thankyou !!

Ian you are quite right. When we went in Feb sitting in economy very comfortable when a steward come up said understand you are a gold member would you like the menu or something from Business, well the steak was excellent. Same at breakfast. Served first as well.

Gary the difference isn't really that great. I am too old to start changing planes halfway through wondering if my luggage was transfered to save what £100. Like Dan said above ,all the benefits are worth while.

Thanks, my brother (well off and different class to me) would often book economy (his PA would do the bookings) he would know he would be upgraded and they'd always refer to a VIP list to confirm his status and be suprised that he was even booked into economy, obviously he would agree a mistake would have been made, though he does look the part too, unfortunately my status, more laid back and joking personality does not have the same effect :-(